In recent years, demand has arisen for lighting systems that produce light for purposes other than general illumination. Multiple lighting devices are used for such alternative purposes. For example, many lights are designed to produce only a particular wavelength of light, such as ultraviolet, infrared, or particular wavelengths of visible light with an increased intensity versus that of general illumination lights. Many benefits are associated with the particular wavelengths, such as producing a particular emission from subjects different from emissions produced by exposure of the subjects to general illumination light, and such emissions can be used for a wide range of machine vision applications, such as object detection, machine guidance, and the like.
The need to produce these additional wavelengths at sufficient intensities leads to many applications where multiple lighting fixtures are used. Users will often have a device for general illumination, and an additional device for generating the preferred wavelength of light can be used for machine vision applications. For example, in a plant that uses machines with infrared (IR) responsive controls, there will be devices to illuminate the plant floor-space for factory workers as well as separate IR lighting for detection by the image capture and associated machine vision systems of the various machines on the factory floor. The requirement to have multiple lighting devices is not convenient in most many applications. For example, installation of multiple lighting fixtures in a single room may not be feasible as the room may not be designed to incorporate more than one lighting device.